Thursday, September 21, 2006

   Substitute
Today, I got to substitute the class for two hours because the teacher had to leave early to take her son to the doctor. Well, I actually wanted to sub because that meant I got to do a read-aloud and uphold the class, even for a brief time. I really needed to be more comfortable managing the class by myself, and I figured this would help me.

When I did the Read Aloud on The Giver, the class was a little fidgety. During discussion, they were also a little out of control because they weren't taking turns discussing, but I was glad they weren't misbehaving. Then a girl accidentally got hit in the eye, began crying, and had to leave to go to the nurse.

After this, I allowed everyone to go to their desks to work in their response journals, read books, and work on their book projects. I was so pleased because they worked quietly and diligently for a straight hour, until I asked them to stop and share their response journals. Then everyone gathered in a group to share interesting tidbits from their books. I talked about their homework, and we all scurried out for dismissal. I asked all the children to make sure to tell me before they left campus that their parents were there. It was such chaos (and it's the same way during dismissal every day), so my only worry is that some might have run off without letting me know.

Overall, it was a good experience, and the children are such angels.

=]

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